Advanced Shipbuilding
Welcome to the tutorial on advanced shipbuilding. If you haven't already, you need to master the techniques of basic shipbuilding before you try to do the things on this page. Video with turrets and torpedoes coming soon! Cannons Cannons. 9 times out of 10, this will be the reason that you're on this page. You want to add cannons to your ship. Cannons are created very simply. They require two blocks, a sponge and a piston. Place the sponge block down. Place the piston beside the sponge block in such a way that the piston head faces away from the sponge. That's a cannon. That's it. Your ship has limits to the number of cannons it can have. Visit the Ship Types page for more information on the limits for each type of ship. Cannons will be absolutely instrumental to your success on starquest, so we suggest that you have as many cannons as you can. To fire your cannons, pilot your ship. Then, left-click with your ship controller in the direction that you want to shoot your guns. Only the guns facing that same direction will fire; so for example, if your ship has two cannons facing forward and one cannon facing backwards, looking forwards and left-clicking would fire the forward guns, while looking backwards would fire the rearwards-facing cannons. Cannons are rapid-fire and will shoot as fast as you can click. Turrets To build a turret, place down any block (any block you would use to build a spaceship with) then a sponge on top, then a piece of glass on top. Then place a sign with turret on the block. You can place a turret anywhere, not just on a ship. (add picture in the future) Landing Gear All of the best looking starships have landing gear that deploys when the ship lands, right? You can make landing gear for your ship by making a downwards-facing cannon; place a piston facing the ground, and then on top of that, place a sponge block. You can have as many landing gear legs on your ship as you want. They have no function beyond looking cool, but they will help you win starship building contests. Landing gear legs do not extend more than one block towards the ground, so build carefully. Landing gear deploys automatically when a ship is released, and retracts automatically when the ship is piloted. After you build your landing gear, pilot the ship and then release it. If built properly, when you release your ship the landing gear will extend. Be aware that every extended landing gear counts as an additional block to your ship (due to the piston head technically being a block) and might prevent you from taking off again if your ship's block limit is exceeded. Boarding Ramps Every starship that calls itself respectable needs a boarding ramp. Boarding ramps are a bit more complicated to make than anything we've seen so far. Build a setup like this picture, and put it at the edge of the bottom of your ship. The stairs can be any type of stairs, and the wool can be whatever blocks you like, not just wool. To make the sign that you can see there, put boardingramp on the first line and right click it. The boarding ramp will register. To extend the boarding ramp, right click on it. To retract it, right click on it again. Docking Tubes If your ship is a cruiser or larger, I would say that your ship needs docking tubes. If at all possible in your ship designs, work in a docking tube or two- you'll be glad you did. Docking tubes are a good way for vessels to connect together in space. Large vessels that cannot fit into the hangar entrances at spawn must have docking tubes if they wish to connect to the space station. < You can build a docking tube like this The wool has to be wool, though it can be any color. To make that sign, put dockingtube on the first line and right click it. This docking tube attatchment should be built into the side of your ship. To dock your ship, line the docking tube door on your ship up with another docking tube door. That second door could be on a space station, second starship, docking tower, or anything. When you have the docking tube doors lined up properly, right click the docking tube sign. If it is lined up properly, a tunnel of glass will extend to connect the two docking tube doors, and you can walk through it. If you want to disconnect them, right click the sign again. < An example of properly aligned docking tubes < And this is what it looks like when they are connected Storage Crates (Droppers) Chests cannot fly on ships. They're too loose; the items in them rattle around and cause no end of trouble. The smart starship captain uses storage crates. These crates are reinforced chests that can be safely used on starships with no trouble. To craft one, put 7 cobblestone in an upside-down U shape with a piece of copper at the bottom center in a crafting table. The resulting block can be placed anywhere on a ship and will act just like a normal chest, but portable. Starships have limits as to how many storage crates they can have on board. That is listed as a total percentage of blocks. If your ship is 100 blocks, and has a 3% dropper rating, you can have 3 droppers. 200 blocks and a 3% rating, and you can have 6. Etc etc. Check out the Ship Types page for more information on ship limitations. Beds You can have beds on your ship. And if you sleep in one, your bedspawn can move with the ship. This is great for merchant captains who want to live on their ships. However, your bedspawn is only updated when your ship is released. So, for example, if you start piloting your ship, and your bedspawn is on a bed on the ship, your bedspawn will not move. The bedspawn is only updated to the bed's new location when you release the starship. It is done this way to decrease lag and server load. This normally will not be a problem, as if you die your ship is automatically released, which means that your bedspawn will be updated before you respawn. The only reason this could be a problem is if you have a passenger onboard who has a bedspawn on the ship, and the passenger dies. If a passenger on your ship dies, and their bedspawn is on your ship, it is very important that you release the starship before they respawn. Otherwise, their bedspawn will be back where you started piloting the ship, there won't be a bed there for them to respawn at, and they will be sent to spawn. Autopilot You can make a autopilot sign by typing on the top autopilot, then right clicking on it. Once the autopilot is set up, you activate it by piloting the ship, then right clicking the sign while facing the direction you want to go. The Autopilot will have your ship jump a distance based on its speed every few seconds until turned off. Right click the sign again to turn off autopilot. Slipdrive Making a slipdrive is very easy. First you place down a catalyst (diamond block), then you put two hoppers on either side of the catalyst. Please note that the hoppers must have their output going into the catalyst. Once that is done, you place a sign on the catalyst reading slipdrive on the first line. In order to fuel it, place ender eyes in the hoppers. Each trip uses one ender eye. When you want to use the slipdrive, right click the sign and it will activate. Once you enter slipspace, you fly just like you would in space, but much faster. The only way to navigate in slipspace is coordinates, which it will print out in chat while you are flying. When you wish to exit slipspace, right click the sign again. Please remember that if you rematerialize inside any block, you and your ship will explode. Here is a video that explains about how to make and use slipdrives. Most of the information on this page comes from it. **Warning! Do not sleep in slipspace! The bed will explode!**